Locating Supporting Documentation about a Proposed Texas Bill in 1893
It all began with a newspaper article in the Galveston Daily News on 21 February 1893. This article mentioned my ancestor, N.H.O. Polly, a person I have been researching lately and one of whom I tried to locate more information during my recent trip to Texas. Low Hanging Fruit Senator Goss introduced a bill “For the relief of N. H. O. Polly by reimbursing him for losses sustained by reason of Indian depredations in the years 1858, 1859, and 1860.” [1] This one sentence out of a much larger article gave me several pieces of information. I have the dates that Polly lived in Montague County. It is a burned county and any early records of him buying and selling land are gone. I learned that there were Indian problems in those years. Many of the history books talk about the Indian raids and deaths from these. I also learned that the senator who introduced the bill was Goss. Checking the Legislative Reference Library of Texas, I learned Goss’ full name: Demosthenes Franklin Goss (1855-1